A Qatari tanker carrying liquefied natural gas is attempting to sail through the Strait of Hormuz and is heading towards a Pakistani port, according to ship-tracking data.
The Al Kharaitiyat departed from Ras Laffan in Qatar last week and is bound for Port Qasim in Pakistan, where it is expected to arrive on Monday, Vessel Finder shows.
If it reaches its destination, it will be the first Qatari LNG tanker to successfully transit the strait since the waterway was effectively closed after the start of the Iran war on February 28. Two Qatari LNG tankers, Rasheeda and Al Daayen, aborted an attempted crossing on April 6 after failing to secure clearance from Iranian authorities. Qatar is the world’s second-largest exporter of LNG, with Asian markets among its main buyers.
The Al Kharaitiyat is currently sailing under the Marshall Islands flag.
Sources told Reuters that Iran had approved the latest shipment from Qatar and Pakistan under a government-to-government deal. Islamabad, which has been mediating an end to the war, is struggling with an energy crisis.
The strait, a key chokepoint through which about a fifth of energy exports normally pass, has been a flashpoint in the US-Iran conflict. Tehran effectively blocked the waterway once the war began, with the US last month imposing its own blockade on Iranian ships.
The global gas market lost about a fifth of supply in March due to war-related disruption, the International Energy Agency said last month. LNG production fell by 8 per cent, or four billion cubic metres, year on year in March, causing worldwide supplies to drop by 20 per cent, the Paris-based agency said in its quarterly report.
“The duration of the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz is a key uncertainty that will affect global gas demand in 2026,” the IEA said.
Meanwhile, Iranian missile strikes on Qatar also knocked out about 17 per cent of its LNG export capacity with the disruption expected to last three to five years, QatarEnergy chief executive Saad Al Kaabi previously said. The damages, centred on the Ras Laffan industrial site, are expected to cost Qatar about $20 billion annually.
